Colombia and XO laptops

30052008

Salutations, y’all!

I decided it was high time I wrote another BBC technology news post…

According to the BBC (been a while since I wrote that phrase), Caldas, Colombia, has signed up to the One Laptop Per Child programme. This means about 65,000 Caldas children will be receiving XO laptops.

Governor Mario Aristizabal said that the region is “committed to giving each and every child of primary school age the same opportunity to access knowledge as the most privileged children in New York, Berlin or Tokyo.”

Another, separate deal is being negotiated to provide laptops to schools in and around Manizales.

The BBC notes that OLPC have failed to meet their objectives of producing laptops costing $100 dollars each sold in millions. This is true, since each laptop costs $188 and only 60,000 have been sold.

On the other hand, I think that sounds pretty respectable, nevertheless.

The XO laptop isn’t a regular laptop, and it certainly doesn’t have the typical bells and whistles. It’s super tough, with a built in camera, and lots of software ready-installed… but it also lacks a hard drive, a CD drive and an Ethernet port. It’s also much slower than the average laptop, but all the parts are selected to be replaced as cheaply as possible. It’s practical for its purpose, which is for use by schoolchildren.